


solar corona

by Sciosa



Series: ceylon [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Soft Apocalypse, come join me in soft monster family territory where everybody's alive and things are going well, file under: things i wrote like two months ago and didn't post, so anyway obvs this is from ceylon and thus NOT CANON COMPLIANT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 18:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21258038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sciosa/pseuds/Sciosa
Summary: It isn’t even a very difficult solution. Technically speaking, the crown isn’t made for this-- it isn’t a repository for all the people Jon wants to keep, it’s astructuredesigned for Beholding to perceive through-- but Jon is Beholding now, and he is the Crown, and he gets to decide. That’s the human part, the one he wanted to keep, thedeciding.





	solar corona

It’s Elias who points out that the future is going to be a problem.

(_He’s going to die, Jon, and you are not,_ is what he says, but beneath that is 200 years of practice with watching people die, with getting less and less attached to them each time, with the slow wearing away of empathy and warmth, like a cliff-face eroding under the steady onslaught of time.)

(And beneath _that_ is a strata of grief that Jon suspects Elias hasn’t touched in a very long time.)

Jon’s _visceral_ dislike of this realization gives everyone in London a low-grade headache for a week while he manufactures a solution.

It isn’t even a very difficult solution. Technically speaking, the crown isn’t made for this-- it isn’t a repository for all the people Jon wants to keep, it’s a _structure_ designed for Beholding to perceive through-- but Jon is Beholding now, and he is the Crown, and he gets to decide. That’s the human part, the one he wanted to keep, the _deciding_.

The real trick isn’t bringing them in to himself-- there are places in the crown for others, intended for the Eye’s other avatars. Elias has been gleefully fielding calls from the ones who still want to know why they aren’t _part of the Watcher_ for weeks. The trick is figuring out how to bring them into it without changing them-- without making them their places. Jon is the Archivist, and the Watcher, and the Crown, and because he has his Heart he gets to be Jon (and because he’s Jon, his Heart gets to be keep being Elias). It’s a very elaborate system that he has hacked up and reorganized to his own satisfaction, and just shoving them into it without paying close attention to where they fit could hurt them. Or him, but that’s less important. If he’s hurt, Beholding continues. If _they’re_ hurt, they stop.

And he has to ask. That part he doesn’t like. Asking means they could say _no_, and he’s not sure what he would do then. He’s not sure there is another solution. But he has to ask. Choices are important. Not just his choices, but all of them.

They don’t say no.

Martin slides into position in the crown like he was made for it, like it was made for him-- and it was, because it's Jon, and he's for Martin-- a bright point that suddenly illuminates in Jon’s mind, warm and comforting and _there_. Jon can sense the sharp edges of Beholding turning towards him, ready to bite in and make him useful, and flicks them away, back into his own being, restringing connections into himself, he _isn’t_ going to hurt Martin-- but Martin follows them, reaches out and pulls them close and takes them on himself. _The whole point_, he says, dry and fond, _is not letting you carry all the weight._

But for a moment there's just a shadow in the crown where Peter should be, and Jon thinks it failed-- that no amount of Beholding stitched into Peter's being where there used to be Loneliness was enough to bring him into alignment with the rest of them.

And then Elias' delight-- sheer and unadulterated, bright and sharp and _bursting_; Jon has known Elias happy before, but he's never known Elias like this, like there's nothing in him but raw unfiltered joy-- lights up the crown, unrestrained entirely. Very softly, a cautious whisper beneath the shimmering glittering spectacle, Peter says _you're a lot_, not just to Elias but to all of them. Elias is too busy brimming with joy and relief and pride to even respond, and Peter’s gentle amusement hums cool blue counterpoints beneath him.

Jon, finally finding the edges of Peter's presence-- so faint, still so strange and contained, but present, _part of him_\-- knows that he's overwhelmed, that even a small and simpler affection, felt like this, would be a lot for him to process. Elias has nothing like a small and simple affection in him right now, his entire being just singing with _he's mine he's mine he's here he's mine he's safe he's mine i love him i love him i love him_.

“Oh,” says Martin, untangling his limbs slightly from Jon, but that’s fine-- they’re one, he’s Jon’s, he’s here, part of him. “I didn’t… realize.”

_Neither did I_, says Peter, and then quickly, nervous and insubstantial as if he might take it back if it gets a bad reception, _Me too, Elias. You. I love you._

Jon didn’t think Elias could _be_ any happier, but, well. He’s often proven wrong about emotions. He finds it doesn’t distress him when it’s like this-- when it’s Martin, thawing reluctantly; Elias, beyond words, only able to feel as intensely and directly as possible; Peter, shy and hopeful, finding a place he belongs in.

This is his Watcher’s Crown, the one he chose, the one he _made_.

(And elsewhere: the fledgling devotees of a strange and watchful god dream of a crown with many parts. In their dreams it watches them, and consumes them, and changes them, and beneath it all, all the time, it loves it loves it loves.)


End file.
